It’s Sunday, almost dinnertime, and I still had not bathed. Carlos also had not bathed because we spent all day doing yard work. We were dirty and sweaty. I wore the ugliest and most stained clothes I own, my hair was a mess. We removed the clothes, Carlos and I, finally ready to shower when we heard a car stopping outside our house. Voices speak Spanish outside the door and then the doorbell sounds.

“Who is it?” I ask Carlos. We are not expecting visitors.

Carlos peeks out the window.

“Mando and Naji with their kids.”

Mando and Naji are our friends, a Mexican couple, but we aren’t so close that we can visit one another without invitation, or at least, without prior notice. (Not even my mother visits me without phoning first!) As a gringa, this custom is one part of Latin culture that I still do not like and I’m not used to.

Carlos puts his clothes back on and goes out to greet our unexpected guests, but not me! I got into the shower and started to get ready as quickly as possible. I put on clean clothes, but nothing super nice – just jeans and a T-shirt. I pulled back my wet hair and put on just a little makeup. “Good enough,” I said to my reflection in the mirror before leaving my room.

In the living room, Naji and Mando sat on the couch and when I greeted them (Mando with a handshake and Naji with a kiss and a hug), all I could think was, They look so nice! Both were dressed in fancy clothes and looked so elegant that I asked if they had just come from mass.

“No?” Mando said, puzzled. “Why?”

“Oh,” I said, “It’s that you both look so handsome.”

Mando blushed, but offered no reason for the fancy threads.

“They brought us fish and beer,” Carlos said, changing the subject. This visit is getting even stranger, I thought, but there it was in the kitchen, a bag full of bloody fish with scales, tails, heads and eyes. Nearby, a few bottles of Negra Modelo.

For a while, we sat and talked. I enjoyed playing with their cute baby with his little almond-shaped eyes and his toothless smile, but when dinner time came, they made no move to depart. On the contrary, Mando opened another beer and Naji took off her heels.

Anxiously, I realized they wanted to stay for dinner and I hadn’t even bought the groceries for the week. I went to the kitchen to take inventory, praying that there was enough food to make a nice dinner. I looked at the bag of fish again.

“Carlos,” I whispered, “They’re not expecting that I prepare the fish for dinner, are they?”

Thankfully, Carlos told me no – that the fish were nothing more than a gift.

In the end I found everything I needed to make Salvadoran meatballs in salsa with rice, fried yucca, curtido and tortillas. Naji insisted on helping me cook – specifically, she wanted to make the salsa for the meatballs.

“You can make the salsa,” I said, “But they’re Salvadoran meatballs. I don’t know if they’ll go well together.”

Naji watched me make the meatballs.

“You make them different than Mexican meatballs. I put a hard boiled egg in each one,” said Naji.

We worked together in the kitchen, Naji and I – a difficult thing for some women.

“I’ll help with the tortillas,” she said when I finished making the dough.

“Okay,” I said, “Thanks.”

“Where is the prensa?” she said.

“What’s that? I don’t know that word.”

Naji imitated the act of pressing a tortilla flat in a tortilla press.

“Oh … I don’t have one,” I said, patting the dough in my hands.

“So, what now?”

“Like this,” I smacked a thick tortilla on the griddle.

“To me that is not a tortilla, that’s called a gordita.”

“In El Salvador, it’s a tortilla,” I said.

Now it was Naji who shrugged her shoulders. She took a handful of dough and began to copy me, stopping occasionally to ask if it was right. She slapped a thick tortilla onto the griddle, then smiled and shook her head.

“Wow, I’m learning to make Salvadoran tortillas.”

“It’s even stranger than that,” I said, “You’re learning to make Salvadoran tortillas from a gringa!”

At nine in the evening, everyone finally sat down to dinner, all around the table – Mando and Naji and their two sons, Carlos and I and our two boys – a strange but happy family.

Bellies full, plates scraped clean after second and third helpings, it was time to say “goodbye.” When they left and we closed the door behind them, I realized that even though I don’t like surprise visits, it had been a fun night.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, Salvadoran meatballs are delicious with Mexican salsa.

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